Rhyming & Alliteration

Hi ladies! Just want to share some ideas that you can use in your classrooms/homebases.
Remember that the most important thing that we can do for the children we work with is to have a nurturing, supportive relationship with them. With this essential component in place alot of fun learning will happen.

Both rhyming & alliteration are fun learning activities for preschoolers.
RHYMING is being able to hear that two words have the same sound at the end (box, fox)

ROLLING RHYMES
Procedure
-Collect pictures of common objects that are easy to rhyme
-Have the children sit on the floor so they can roll a ball back & forth to each other
-Name each of the pictures for the children
-Model for the children how to create nonsense rhyming words with one or two of the pictures
-Show & name a picture (e.g., fox)
-Roll the ball to a child to have that child create a rhyming word with the picture (e.g., box)
-That child then rolls the ball to the next child
-The next child says a word that rhymes with the two words (e.g., fox, box)
-Encourage children to make up both real words & use nonsense words (e.g., gox, hox, ect.)

ALLITERATION refers to two or more words that have the same sound at the beginning (bone, baby, bike, ballon)
TONGUE TWISTERS
Procedure
-Read an alliteration story
-Have children repeat tongue twisters
-Have children repeat alliteration sentence
     *Five fat frogs flying fast.
     *Six sick sheep sleep.
     *A big black bear.
-Make up fun sentences that goes with the child's name.
     *Billy bounces big blue balls.
     *Sally sells seashells.
     *Tommy takes time to tackle Timmy.
-Have the children identify the sound that is the same.
-Tape record yourself and your children as you read the story to them and as they practice repeating the sentences individually and as a group.

Make learning fun & remember Uri Bronfenbrenn's quote, "Every child needs one person who is crazy about him".

      
  

Good feelings promote good learning

The blog is back!!! I will be more diligent in posting more frequently. :)

Our big focus this year is on the "Social & Emotional" development of the children that we work with. This has to been in place before we can accomplish all the wonderful things that we want to with these little friends of ours.

Hence, in our first blog I'd like to share a fun activity with you on feelings.

SIMON SAYS FEELINGS
Procedure
- This game promotes familiarity of feeling words & understanding of one's own feelings.
- Play "Simon Says" with the children substituting feeling phrases for the usual directions.
     "Simon says, make a happy face."
     "Simon says, make an angry face."
     "Simon says, look scared."
- In between commands, ask questions about those feelings, such as "What makes you feel happy?", "What do you do when you are angrey?"

The power & importance of Read Alouds . . .

"Reading aloud to children is the single most important activity one can do to raise a reader."

This quote comes from the U.S. Department of Education. Hopefully you are reading to your students every day. A story at large group would be great. A fun way to start your small groups might be with a story! Remember to make your stories come alive for your students. If necessary; howl, laugh, growl, giggle, shiver, empathize or sympathize during the reading! We need to attach children to books. We need to help them to associate books with pleasure! A quote from Bev Boz (early childhood specialist), "Read,read, read, read, and, when you think your lips are going to fall off, read one more!"

Teachers extending Study Group

Shelly shared this with me. I am excited to hear that you ladies are taking the things that you learn in Study Group and extending them with your own ideas! I thought that it would be fun to share them with everyone. Thanks ladies & Shelly for sharing!
     1-Bingo cards with feeling pictures.
     2-Rhyming block---the child rolls the dice (block) & rhymes a word with the picture that comes up.
     3-Use feeling cards for recall from work time- "How did you feel playing in _______ area today?"
     4-Sing the song "If you're happy & you know it" & let the children pick a feeling & an action to continue.
        An example, "if you're sad and you know it touch your head".

A blog for everyone!

Just a quick note to everyone. I'm learning how to create & do this blog . . . please be patient with me. The purpose of the blog is to share ideas that will go along with our Study Groups. I have alot of wonderful video clips of many of you! I'm hoping to incorporate each one of you talented ladies in our blog. I will try and share ideas often. If you have ideas that are working great, please let me know. I will  try and put them on the blog.

Adding literacy to the classroom.

Here's an idea that the teachers in Monument Valley are using to incorporate both vocabulary and alphabet awareness in their classroom. The vocabulary words  are words that begin with the letter of  the week.

The letter "S" transition

This is a clip of the transition in action. Thanks Monroe!